In Past Show

About Atelier Van Lieshout

Atelier van Lieshout, the celebrated art, design, and architecture studio founded by Joep van Lieshout, combines idealism and grit to produce sculptures, installations, furnishings, architectural spaces, and plans for the future of humanity. Functional or fantastical, their work is shaped by a belief in self-sufficiency, distrust of politics and power, and the universal paradigms of life and death. They approach each project as a Gesamtkunstwerk—a total work of art formed from a synthesis of methods, materials, and disciplines. Their best-known Gesamtkunstwerk is AVL-Ville (2001-02), an autarkic, utopian “free state” with its own constitution, which floated in Rotterdam’s port for one year. In all of its projects, Atelier van Lieshout aims to reveal where we are now—trapped in a sanitized, consumerist world—and where we should be—re-connected to farming, industry, and the ongoing cycle of production and consumption.